Help netflix fight off cry baby blockbuster.

May 22nd, 2008 2 Comments

Every day there is something going on in technology that gets me excited. Today is another one of those days I caught wind that Netflix has finally finished working on it’s streaming video player. The device has been called “The Netflix Player” not the greatest of names but hey they probably tried really hard.

It looks like the player is gonna be an awesome device and another push by netflix to try an innovate. They really need to make some changes at netflix because of the pressure to perform and also to out do the competition blockbuster. As many of you know blockbuster is trying to buy out Circuit City if this happens Netflix is in real trouble without something new and innovative.

The Player instantly streams movies from Netflix directly to the TV. It’s a device that enables netflix subscribers to instantly stream over 10,000 movies in the Netflix arasonal. This does include the TV shows which have multiple disk, that will help the individual who loves old shows and wants to watch them over and over again. The only problem is they have not set up all the movies so the latest movies that are out are not streamable at this time, but I would guess it’s only a matter of time. I would say they should have new movies coming on line very soon. To me this means I can get my movies faster on release day I love being the first person at home to watch the new DVD’s.

The device features:

  • Remote Control
  • HDMI Port
  • Componet Video
  • S-Video
  • Composite Video
  • Digital Optical Audio
  • Analog Stereo Audio

The device is priced at just $99.99 and is available for purchase as we speak.

Read more about this story here on the Roku site and the Press Release.

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Stompernet is opening it’s access today at 3PM EST I will be there.

May 22nd, 2008 Comments Off

MoneyA couple of days ago I got wind of a website called Stompernet.com from a twitter post. A link to www.stompernet.net was posted, which helps people understand SEO and helps you build a business on the web. I was taken back a bit because I had never heard of Stompernet but now that I found it all I can say is WOW. The site is a members only site for the most part, although they release different videos for free that help anyone who is not a member.

So now getting to membership this is probably why I didn’t know about this website, the price to be a member is crazy. They don’t just let you sign up everyday the last time they opened the network it was over a year ago. I’m not sure if the price I saw was recent or old, but I know why I had never herd of them. The price was about $800 per month “what the hell”. This price blew my mind and also made me think what in the hell are they giving me for $800 per month.

That price might seem very steep to you but the truth is for the information they are providing you it’s not that bad. Just like anything else you have to take the bull by the horns and run with it. The truth is that later today at around 3PM Eastern time they will be opening the system up again for new subscribers. I’m not sure if I’m ready to shell out that kind of money, but if I can make my money back in a matter of 3 to 6 months the money will be well worth the effort.

Visit the website for more information: http://www.stompernet.com

Visit the launch for the reopen here.

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Keep track of those passwords instead of writing it down all the time.

May 20th, 2008 1 Comment

With all the passwords in your life from your home computer to your work computer to your email passwords. You could have any where from 3 passwords to 10 passwords or many more. While one password for all those systems can work for you. The problem with that is the fact that once a crook has figured out your password they now have access to your entire online life.

In the past I have talked at length about how important it is to have secure passwords. Well with programs such as Password Safe and Any Password. You have the capability to save your passwords and related information in on place which makes it easy to retrieve this at anytime.

There are many more programs to do this with, but I wanted to talk about those that I have personally used before.

Password safe is released under open source and free software

When installing Password Safe you have a choice to install 2 ways:

  • Regular (uses registry, suitable for home or single computer)
  • Green (for disk-on-key; does not use host registry pen or usb drives)
    • Oh you can purchase a copy of the U3 Version which installs on your U3 USB drive learn more about U3 here.

The database is kept with the extension of (.psafe3)

You can create new passwords enter notes, URL information and keep a copy of the last 255 password changes. Also you can tell the system when the password has to be changed by a specific date or number of days. The encryption that Password Safe uses is Two Fish which is considered very secure.

Any Password has two versions of the program you can download for your computer one is the free version which works great but with limited capabilities and Any Password Pro which has some expanded capabilities. Any Password is not vista ready in the current version, but they say that is coming soon for the free version beside Any Password Pro is Vista ready at this time. Pocket Any Password version is free and available for Pocket PC 3.0 (2002) or higher running on ARM, MIPS, or SH3 processors. All passwords are protected by the RC2/MD5 encryption algorithms.

  • The install options don’t let you choose to install on any removable media such as pen or usb drives.

The database is kept with the extention of (.apw)

With the addition of Any Password Pro you get these added features:

* ability to store files
* expired password notification
* sending password or other information automatically to other applications
* database synchronization
* data file compression
* ability to run from removable devices
* and more…

Which ever program you choose to install just remember what happens if your computer gets stolen or your hard drive goes bad. You could potentially loose all the passwords to your systems. This is why I tell people to email a copy of the database to your online email account such as hotmail, yahoo, or gmail. That way you can reinstall the program later in time.

Any password is capable of doing what you want but my 2 minute review says that Password Safe has more capabilities. I would suggest you download the both of them and make a choice for your self but I do think that you get more with the Password Safe which is 100% free all the time.

Any Password Download

Password Safe Download

Password Safe U3 Version Download

TBTR

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I just need to concentrate and my itunes is irritating me.

May 19th, 2008 2 Comments

MusicI use itunes to purchase new music and to import my old cds on occasion. Well lately I have been wanting to concentrate on things at my computer weather its surfing the internet, blogging, or writing technical documents at work. Today I was sitting around and decided to look up white noise which is sort of noise canceling music. In itunes there are many tracks to choose from I will say that I never thought in a million years that I would purchase something like this but I did. In fact I purchased a track called “brown noise”. There were two versions one runs for 60 minutes and the other runs for 4 minutes. I started the track and then started to blog but noticed that at the end of the track the sound would always fade just enough to notice and throw my concentration off right before the track would repeat. I then decided to look around and saw a post from someone on how to stop this annoying thing from happening. Making this change to the track in itunes lets you loop the track to keep the brown noise playing for hours on end.

Here is where I share with you how to:

  1. Right click the track, and click “get info”
  2. Click options
  3. If the track is showing for example 4:00 minutes in the stop time area and you notice the fade out starts at oh lets say 3:55 minutes change the time of the track in this window to 3:30 minutes. You could change it to 3:54 but that might be to close to the end and you might get some of the fade out.
  4. Now set the track to loop by choosing to repeat the track and there you have it. Not only will it loop for hours on end but you also only paid $.99 for the short track instead of the $9.99 for the 60 minute version.

TBTR has helped save you $9.00 that could go towards a starbucks chi tea or soon a full gallon of gas.

TBTR

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These days we need secure and strong passwords.

May 19th, 2008 1 Comment

passwordAs a Network Administrator there are times when I have to setup passwords for people. This could be the first password for a new employee or it could be a password reset. It used to take along time to setup these passwords, cause I would have to think up a password at times I would make a complex password and then other times out of time I would choose a very simple password. The problem with simple is if the person never decides to change the password to something complex it creates a possible security risk. Your network could be compromised. A simple password cracker could be used to break the password and then let anyone with bad intentions enter your network easily.

So one day I was looking for a way to create a complex password and I googled for a program and came across Secure Password Generator it’s created by PC Tools Software. The program is very simple it helps you create secure complex passwords. You can do this in two ways one is online on the site, or you can download the freeware application. The online version can create a password using SSL connections which are very secure so that prying eyes can not sniff your connection to steal the password.

You can create passwords from 4 characters to 64 characters, the longer the password the harder it is to break. If your creating a password for someone to use the longer the password the more motivation for the person to change it to something they can remember.

If you do download the application you get included a password checker which makes sure the password you choose is a secure one. Also a added bonus of the download version is the password revealer. Have you ever put a password in Internet Explorer so that when you revisit that site it will remember you? What happends if you forgot that password there is no way to find out what it was, well with password revealer it works with Internet Explorer to reveal saved password that you have entered in web-forms but may have subsequently forgotten or lost. So go ahead download the program or use the online version either way you should be satisfied.

TBTR

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